Into a new world

“It is important to love what you do. It is important to find the career you will truly enjoy. You find something that excites you, and that’s half the battle won”.

An advertising professional helping in building brands by providing creative solutions and strategies. This is what I currently do.  In everything that I do, my creativity has kept flowing. Thanks to advertising. Creative, expressive, innovative, passionate, story teller, an ideator, etc. are few words that people around have associated with me.  I realized that my advertising and communication skills required a better platform. The fact that interactions pertaining to advertising did not seem to be meaningful or relevant to me. Brand conversations did not really interest me over a period of time.

Since a while now, I have been trying to discern where my interest lies? What would make me happy? Which phase of my life have I enjoyed the most? School, College, Work life, etc. As I think, I begin to re-collect memories flash before my eyes. Crying and being carried into the class as a toddler, painting the walls of my house which were my never ending canvas, role-playing as a teacher with friends, reading out Goldilocks and the three bears and questioning myself as to how could bears sit on tables, singing nursery rhymes and not being able to understand who exactly where Jack and Jill and many such incidents. The flash back is indeed beautiful and memorable…. As I muse over these joys, a smile draws upon my face. After constant ponderings, the answer is – My Childhood, the best phase of life. Where dealing with broken dolls and bruised knees were one of the best experiences ever felt. Not only have I loved and cherished my childhood, but each time I see a child I have been amazed by his/her deeds and actions.
“There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million”-Waltz Streightff
          Innocence and curiosity are the two things I have always associated with kids. In pursuit of this interest, I committed myself to teach religion studies (Catechism) in my Parish for nearly 7 years. I was a music teacher for kids in my neighbourhood area. I was a part-time college lecturer to students of Mass Media at Sophia College, Mumbai. In all these myriad ways, I learnt that there is a different world inside the classrooms and a different kind of bonding that culminates between a student and a teacher. The time spent within those four walls of the room is indeed precious. And with toddlers, that precious time should be put to the best use possible. The first formative years of the child has a lot to do with how he would spend most of his life later.  A process of engaging, to make the subject more relevant and interesting than just providing them with any theory knowledge which they would never recall in their life.  The time when the mind is raw, and they’ve hardly been exposed to the world outside, and imagination is at the peak. With kids, there is so much energy to do so many things, so many questions that need answers too. Channelizing that energy in the best way possible to help them learn, understand and grow is the best investment. It is a journey that one walks with the child - A parent or a teacher, in a way that makes them feel comfortable. It is a partnership, of doing things together.

I consider myself lucky to have the opportunity of experiencing this for a brief period of time, and I am excited to turn my passion into my career. The time spent with kids has always transported me into a new world... I consider child learning and development during the early years the most critical and informative learning ever and want to immensely contribute to the same. Taking my advertising and communication skills of being a creative thinker and planner, I would like to make this a part of me. Talk to them in the language they understand the best.  Encourage the child to question, imagine, and to self-learn than feeding him with do’s & don’ts etc. There are no limits to learning during early education. It is said, Play is the only expression of human development in childhood. It is a free expression of what is in a child’s soul.

 I need the required guidance, training to pursue this passion further. I no longer would want to describe this just as an interest that lies within me, but fuel that same interest and passion by creating a difference in the life of children by being an early childhood educator.

“Away from client meetings and conference board rooms, market strategies and brand stories, ready to enter a world that excites me. With building blocks and crayons, shapes and songs, picture books and stories, getting set to explore a new world”.